All three snowy plover chicks at Carpinteria State Beach are still going strong. I shot this video of them and their dad this morning.
Maximum cuteness.
Are… are they chasing fleas? How could you stand being on that beach?!
Well, they’re sometimes called sand fleas, or sandhoppers. But they’re mellow little jumping amphipods. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talitridae. No biting of humans involved.
Those are the clear-ish jumping thingies. The smaller dark things are kelp flies, also quite benign.
People sometimes complain about wrack (washed up seaweed) and the invertebrates that associate with it. They prefer a raked, sanitized beach devoid of as much non-human life as possible. I hold a different opinion, as do plovers.
It was their beach for a long time before we moved in and started waging ecocide.
This entry was posted by jbc on Thursday, June 17th, 2021 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Tumblr.
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